GIP! Kate and George love their jobs; so do I

kelilah, look! *points at lovely lovely Mathnet icon by penwiper26*

I love the detective work that comes at this early stage of processing a good-sized collection of manuscripts from a wealthy but not famous family of the eighteenth or nineteenth century - beginning to sketch a family tree as I discover new relations, scribbling out a timeline as I find where different people lived at different times, matching handwriting and context to reunite orphan pages with their mates, and chortling happily to myself as I note down lines like "But I have now a Mallent Cholly [i.e. melancholy] account to give thee."

So far I've got brushes with debtors' prison, people fleeing to Jamaica with trade goods to which they have no title, and plaintive why-don't-you-write pleas from parents to children and vice versa. And there are indications that an ill-advised marriage may be in the offing as well. Throw in a Baronet and all the makings of melodrama will be in place.

This should keep me nicely busy until Christmas. *rubs hands gleefully*

rambling discourse on my profession

( I babble more about what my job is and how I got it )